Camp Loopy Fabric Safari – Project 2

Today the announcement for the July project for Camp Loopy Safari – the fabric version – was announced so the shopping and planning could commence.

The challenge for July is to pick six different half yard cuts of fabric (you could use more but that’s the minimum) and somewhere on your project there must be a bit of applique or embroidery.

Here’s the fabrics I chose:

  I know I’ve said this before but I love the Project Planner feature that was added to TLE website.  You can add fabric (or yarn) and see them side by side and then with a click – it turns into a shopping list so you can edit how much of each one, and another click, it dumps those fabrics with the yardage you listed directly into the shopping cart.

I’ve been coveting the fabric that is in the bottom row middle for a while — these are all batiks and I can’t say I’ve ever met a batik I didn’t love — but I especially love that one.   I recalled a pattern I had wanted to make and so found the others to go with them.  It will be another large wallhanging and look similar to this pattern from the Robert Kaufman website called Asymetrical Diamond.  All just simple HSTs.

 

 

 

The yellow/goldish batik will be my background (used where the white is in the quilt image), the three batiks with black in them will make up where the darker shades of blue/purple are and the three lightest batiks will be where the lighter shades of blue/purple are in the quilt.  The bright pink will be the binding and as for my bit of applique (because you know I will be doing applique rather than embroidery) 🙂 I’m thinking I’ll add a pink heart in the diamond area where the blocks meet to make sort of the center – the asymmetrical center.  Either that or one of the prints is butterfly wings so I may applique a few little butterflies flitting across it.

 

So my order is placed and my plan is in place.  Now I just have to finish off the June project and then wait for July to start this one.  But, at the last minute, I decided to  give myself a three-day weekend, so I should have my final border area quilted in no time tomorrow and get the binding on and hopefully have a totally finished project done before the end of the weekend.

Camp Loopy Fabric Safari update

I am cruising right along on my June Camp Loopy sewing project.  Only four days in and all I have left to stitch for the front of it is the border blocks, which are about half done.

You may remember almost about a month ago as I was planning this project, I had been playing with blocks in EQ and at one point had a section that looked like this

  Those pieces that twisted and turned reminded me of squiggly horns some types of antelopes have.

Which led me to this photo of  an African Antelope.    One of my first plans (you know I always change my mind) was to do a wall hanging with African style masks on it so I sort of decided to combine the two and make African Antelope masks.  There are no eyes – I didn’t want them to look exactly like masks because I think that would have looked distracting.  But I did add in that light strip that is right below their eyes.   No one but me may ever recognize that those are “squiggly horned antelopes” but I do so that’s all that really matters.

 Here’s where I’m at so far.  I made a few changes from the last EQ drawing of it that I showed.   The lower image is the EQ drawing of how it will look once the border blocks are added.

 

 

 

 

On the Needles – Friday 5/29/15

My blue sweater isn’t finished yet –only about an inch or two of the sleeve cap to go on the last sleeve.  But, since I was going out of town last weekend, I needed something else to take along to work on where I didn’t really have to pay attention.  So I cast on this sweater.  Note that this is the worst photo ever.  Hot pink my sweater is not — it is actually bright cherry red but that’s such a hard photo to photograph in my sewing room on a gloomy rainy night.  So just pretend it looks bright red.  This one is Cascade Ultra Pima Cotton.  It will be a 3/4 length sleeve button cardigan. The back is plain and there will be a bit of design up the front along the button bands.

Now the second photo — those colors are perfect!

That’s my Loopy Legend yarn – Denise’s Gannets.  The only downside of it — oh the yardage that will add to my stash knitting tally! 🙂   I have three different sweaters nearly done — two need blocking (after I finish that last sleeve cap) and the other needs the front/neck bands added.  If I ever stop starting new projects, I’ll be able to make some headway on that stash knitting tally.  In the meantime, I have to go add 3,045 yards on for my Gannets yarn. 😉

Hobbit Shoes

  This is the before picture of my Hobbit Shoes.  The seams are all sewn and that’s one of my old sandals laying on the bottom to show how much bigger they are than my big sandal.

 

Of course as I was sewing them together last night I couldn’t find the pattern laying any where by my knitting chair and I was too snug and warm under my quilt in said chair with the winds howling outside and the minus 20 windchills to want to get up and go in the sewing room and turn on the computer and double check the sewing instructions for the Hobbit Shoes.

I remembered that you just held them WS together to stitch them shut but I sort of seamed them like I do sweaters  and pulled my stitches tightly – forgetting that that seam too and my seaming stitches would all felt up – I would not have needed to pull them so tight.

So I started with a short hot wash cycle and stopped it after the water drained to check on them (they were secured in a pillowcase during felting and some towels thrown in to the load).  After the first run through they had not felted much  – I wanted to make sure how the multicolored yarn would felt since I hadn’t used that before and didn’t know if it would felt at the same rate as my Cascade on the bottom.  It does so I changed to several heavy duty hot loads checking after each one, stopping it after the initial wash water had drained and skipping the cold rinse cycle.

And here they are drying.

It’s a lousy indoor photo since it’s gray and gloomy out this morning (and snowing and in the single digits) but I’ve got that pair of sandals I used above in plastic bags and shoved in side the Hobbit Shoes to shape them to the right size.   Now the result of having pulled my seams up tightly rather than loosely — your Hobbit Shoes get nipples on the toes where the end of the seam is – which just makes them even funnier.  If I had sewn more loosely the ends of the seams would have rounded out more.

These felted down to nice thick slippers which I think will be great to wear around the house (since I never wear shoes when home) and keep my feet nice and warm.  Once they are dry, they will get a shave with the sweater shaver to de-hair them and the colors will bright up a bit and I’ll take a better photo.  Now I just have to wait a couple days for them to dry completely.

Loopy Academy School Supplies

  My “school supplies” have arrived today – along with the Loopy Academy button which Little Loopy has claimed as his sword – protector of the stash from any rival Academy.  If I see him armed with a double-pointed needle sword, I’ll know we’re in trouble! 🙂

The variegated – Mrs. Crosby Satchel in Toucan for my cowl.

To the right of that, Mrs. Crosby Carpet Bag in  Peacock.  The peacock is darker and more rich looking than in my photo and I might actually wear the hat I am making out of it because the color is so wonderful.

And in the back – Cascade 220 Heathers in 2433 Pacific for the mittens.  I haven’t decided on a mitten pattern for sure yet but I have enough yarn for the mittens that I might try felting them.  I don’t want them real tightly felted because then they get too stiff but a little felting could be a good thing when the below zero wind chills start to blow.

Now to collect the needles I’ll need, get to winding some of this yarn, and maybe start on one of them – there’s all semester to get them done.   Oh dang – now I have to go add this yarn into my “yarn in” numbers on the Knit the Stash tally.  Oh well – at least I know it won’t be too long before I can count it back out again. (Well, except for that extra hank of Toucan I got.)

 

But it might be a good day to sit out side for an hour or two and knit since after inches and inches of rain in the past week, it’s a lovely day here for a change.  Sunny, low 70s, no humidity, slight breeze — could it please stay this way for another month or two???

All the rain we got, and the heat and dry before that, did not help my garden at all.  Neither did the chipmunks and squirrels who kept taking chomps out of my already pathetic tomatoes and a pepper.    My cucumbers – those were great.  Probably didn’t produce as much as normal due to conditions, but produced plenty for one person to be eating and there’s still a couple more yet growing on the vines.   My red onions – did not get big at all but I’ll pull them eventually and use them.  The rain keeps washing the dirt off the top of them and I keep putting it back around them.    Tomatoes — my five plants did not get much on them at all and what was on them – either green or starting to get ripe, the critters chomped on all except……

one yellow tomato  and these

 Three little tomatoes were all I got!!!!  Dang critters.  But look at that pepper.  It is gorgeous and about 6″ long.  I was afraid to leave it out there to get any redder on the vine because I thought the critters were probably just waiting for the right moment to eat it.  There two or three more like it on that one pepper plant which was the star of my garden which hopefully will make it to fully ripe so that I (not critters) can eat them.  This one is going to be showcased on my dinner plate tomorrow night.  Steak and along with that my favorite salad topping combination — red onions (from my garden), pepper rings, blue cheese crumbles and walnuts.    I was going to have that tonight but had lunch really late so I think  a BLT with some of those tomatoes might be in order.

Mix ‘N Match Stitch Along

   The Mix ‘N Match Labor Day stitch along will be held over the next three days.

  The schedule is — block pattern instructions for the center of the quilt available on Saturday.  There are two different block styles that make up the center of the quilt.

Sunday, I’ll post the block instructions to make the outer border blocks.

Monday, the sashing / plain border instructions and putting it all together.

As previously stated, these are the “quicky instructions.”  They are not as detailed as if I were writing a pattern for use elsewhere but this is such a simple quilt, they should not be hard to follow. 

Quilt size as shown is 60″ x 72″  If you go to yesterday’s blog post about the stitch along, you will find additional information – like download links to just a black and white line drawing of the quilt to use to preplan where your fabrics will be placed (get out those colored pencils or label the locations of specific fabrics for your reference perhaps)  and other information.  It also contains the very important information on how to download a Box.net file (the site where my patterns are stored).   It’s very easy to do, no sign up is required but you do need to actually use the DOWNLOAD button found the site.  The same info on file download can  also easily be found in the button at the top of the blog called “copyright and use of my patterns.”  If you are saving the pattern for later use and have never downloaded  from Box.net, I suggest you read it or your pattern may not really be saved when you go to look for it.  Remember, I don’t email patterns out privately.

If you like the fabrics show n in this quilt – check them out at The Loopy Ewe.  The fabrics in this one just make me smile. I love those daisy prints especially and they are so bright and pretty.  They are from the Moda Pot Luck collection. 

The version I’ll be working on this weekend will be using more Loopy Ewe fabrics – this time I’ll be working with these fabrics:

They are Cloud 9 Fabrics – Bark and Branch collection and some from the Shape of Spring collection and some Riley blenders.  The hardest part will be deciding what fabric to use where but I’ll be making a larger bed-size version for myself so I’ll have more blocks to spread the fabrics around in.

Don’t tell Sheri at The Loopy Ewe but I’m not so sure it’s a good thing they added a fabric department.  It’s seriously cutting into my yarn budget.  ;-).

There’s also a link in the sidebar for my Flickr group – a place to share photos of blocks/quilts made from my patterns.  Please feel free to  join and share your blocks or completed project photos – you never know when I might do a giveaway drawing from among the photos uploaded. 😉

Now, what you’ve  been waiting for:

 DOWNLOAD BLOCK A HERE

DOWNLOAD BLOCK B HERE.

Potluck Picnic — It’s finished!

  My second project for The Loopy Ewe sewing camp is totally done. 

Here’s my stack of fabrics I used.  For the July project, you needed to use one Short Stack (fat quarter packet) and two different one yard cuts of fabric.  You could add other fabrics to it, and you could make whatever you wanted.

You can see my short stack – the one with the little tag on he ribbon.  My 1 yard cuts were the white tone on tone background fabric, and the blue check in the lower fabric group which was used in the quilt and for the binding.

The fabrics I chose for this project  from The Loopy Ewe are from the Moda Potluck fabric collection.  Since it’s a “Camp Loopy” project and since the fabric collection is called “Potluck”, I decided the perfect name for this quilt will be “Potluck Picnic.”   The colors, the daisy prints and the little checks remind of a summertime picnic.

The finished size of the quilt is 60 x 72.  A nice large lap quilt size.  And as I’ve gotten a many requests for the pattern, it will be made available on the blog at some point in the future, possibly for a Labor Day weekend stitch along. 

Anyway – here it is.  I just love the bright happy colors.

  Since it’s such a simple and plain block design, I wanted to keep the quilting fairly simple.  I stitched in the ditch in the white sashing around all the pieces and also in the ditch on all those outer border strips using a yellow thread for all the quilting.  The outer border cornerstones have a spiral posey quilted in them and the green and yellow inner border have a feather design in them.

Since I had changed my plan on what this project would be, the red print I bought for the backing wasn’t large enough so I turned the red fabric sideways (it was a couple of inches wider than my quilt) and added a section of yellow from the stash to the top and bottom of it.  I’m really pleased with how it turned out.

Two Boxes of Fun

I love days when Boxes of Fun arrive from the Loopy Ewe!

Today my Camp Loopy project 3 packages arrived.

Here’s the yarn for my knitting camp project – I’ve been assigned to the Moose Run Lane Ravelry group for the last camp knitting project.

  I’ll be making Puck.  The yarn is Stonehedge Fiber Mill – Shepherd’s Wool DK in Antique Rose, Beaches and Midnight Lake.  I actually might even have a blouse in just about the same color as the Antique Rose now that I look at it that the shawl would look good with — maybe — or maybe I’ll need to buy something new. 🙂  Now to wait for the start of month 3.

 

My Camp fabric project fabrics arrived too — most of them.  I had placed the order for them before actually figuring out the design I wanted to use them in. I had a general idea but once I got it nailed down, I needed to add a bit more fabric so there’s a piece or two still coming.

The fabrics are Charley Harper designs.  If you don’t know the name Charley Harper, you can see his work here.  He was an illustrator and I especially love his birds.

So here’s the fabrics I got.

Except for the solid under the dotted bird print, and the Short stack of black tone on tones, the rest are Charley Harper fabrics. Hopefully I can get the larger prints fussy cut the way I envision it in my head!

But before dreaming too much about this project, I really need to get THIS month’s fabric project layered and quilted.  I never got around to it on the weekend but I was busy writing up a new pattern for Hoffman Fabrics and drawing up a second design for them.  Next weekend – that will be my weekend to get the quilting done – I hope!

In the meantime, since my 2nd camp knitting project is done, I’ve switched back to my Customfit Summer Sweater KAL project which is supposed to be done by August 15.  Yipes, I’d better knit fast the rest of this month so I get it done before the next Camp project starts.

On the Needles – Friday May 16, 2014

I’m still wrigglin along on my Wiggle Wrap and enjoying it.  I’m trying to see how far I can get before Camp Loopy starts on June 1 but I’m also itching to start another Customfit pattern.

This time I think it will be  Aislinn.  Tho I plan to make a change or two to it.  I’m not into the ties – they would not look good on me – so I’m going to leave those off.  And I’ll alter the fit just a bit (which is really easy to do with CustomFit)  so the fronts come a bit closer together since I prefer sweaters that look like they could close and not pull open at the hips – at least that’s my plan of the moment.  And I may actually put buttons on it too.  First I have to see how much yarn I need and if I have enough of the yarn I want to use.  I’m ignoring for the moment the other summer sweater I started since I’m not sure I like the fabric the yarn is knitting up in.  I may need to change needle size and restart.

But seriously I should NOT be starting a new sweater since Camp Loopy is not far away and not only am I doing “knitting” Camp but also “fabric” Camp.  See the cute buttons in the sidebar – if you want to join in those will take you to the information about both Camps.  It’s not too late to join in the fun. One of the fun things about Camp – you are assigned a Glamper (glammed up retro camper) group (I’m in Glamper 4 for knitting and all fabric projects are in #6) and in the Ravelry Loopy Groupies group there’s all kinds of chatter and showing of yarn (or fabric) that will be used and what patterns will be used.  I find so many fun patterns I had never noticed before during Camp to add to my “want to make list” (maybe that’s a bad thing about Camp come to think of it –more projects on the want to make list than any human being could possibly finish!)  But it’s all good fun.

 

Speaking of fun – if you are doing the Head to Toe – A Knitter’s Gifts BOM, I’ve loaded this month’s block early since I’m headed out early tomorrow for breakfast and a stop at the Garden Center to pick up some plants and do some other shopping with a friend so don’t know when I’ll be back — is it a good thing that our favorite bakery is right across the street from the garden center? Yummmmmmm

I’ve “gone to the dogs” this week

And I’m finally nearly caught up with all the DPPAS dogs through May.  Just one more dog left to stitch.  I need to get caught up this month since Camp Loopy starts next month.

 Here’s Cricket.  I love her pale pink and gray striped ears and her beard fabric especially.

 

And here’s Weaver

Of all the Dog Pound blocks, these two are the most special to me because they are both dogs I actually had – Cricket, my miniature Schnauzer  and Weaver, who I had before Cricket, was a black and brown cocker spaniel.  I’ve got the pieces all cut out and ready for the one May block left to make – Jowles.

My yarn arrived for my first Camp Loopy 2014 project.  This photo shows the purple a bit brighter than it actually is in person due to the camera flash.

 

The other photo on my Ravelry page shows the color a bit more true.  But I love the Shalimar Breathless DK – I’ve used it before and it gives nice stitch definition and silk and cashmere in it, it feels lovely.  Now to wait until June 1 when Camp starts!

 

 

And then, because I simply do not have enough to do am insane! not only am I doing the yarn Camp Loopy but this year there is also a fabric Camp Loopy for the first time this year!!  Well I’ve been with Yarn Camp Loopy since the beginning so I didn’t want to miss out on Fabric Camp Loopy.   So if you sew clothes, quilt, make bags, check out today’s post on Sheri’s blog for the specifics.

The condensed version of the first fabric Camp project instructions – use at least 1/2 yard of three different batiks to make a project to reflect your hometown – be it where you grew up or where you live now, or somewhere you lived in between.

I was thinking about the farm fields surrounding the village of 500 people where I grew up, but instead, after looking at fabrics, I decided to go with Madison where I currently live.  I work downtown on the Capitol Square which is on an isthmus so water water everywhere you turn.

I chose several shades of blues and creams and plan to make a wallhanging or lap quilt – time will tell how large it will be – and will call it “Snow on the Lake.”

So I’m going to have to spend most of June knitting with one hand while sewing with the other.  Maybe I’ll need to take a few days vacation and spend it knitting by the lake! 🙂